Nightmare
by Carol Molliniere
Summary: (READ "WILL THEY LET US DOWN?" FIRST) "The moon looked dull to him, even though there were a great many colorful balloons within its interior..."


**Nightmare**

**By: Carol Molliniere**

**(A/N: Like I said in the summary, this is in the universe of the ROTG/Soul Eater crossover that I'm making, so you might want to read "Will They Let Us Down?" first. This takes place from chapter 3 to chapter 6 of the aforementioned fanfic.)**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Guardians of Childhood. I only own WiS and her Protectors.**

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The Moon looked dull to him, even though there were a great many colorful balloons within its interior. And all these balloons to him were nothing but a distraction with their innocent wishes and pretty colors and rubbery squeaks. The Lunar Moths were magnificent, yes, but he always felt that they were going to abandon him too whenever they flew. He couldn't listen to the countless reminders of the Moonbots or the Moonmice anymore, because he knew. He knew that there was a wealth of dreamsand on the Moon Clipper, but there was no use. If he had any dreams, they would turn to nightmares.

Isolated and trapped.

There was no end to these nightmares. They had no end of topics to them, too, and they always knew where to hit: whether it was about the Guardians becoming defeated and broken, without anymore lights to help them; or the children, vulnerable to the darkness and overdose of fear that would no doubt destroy them from the inside out; or his only ally in the sky, the Woman in the Sun, sharing his fate and the rest of her Protectors annihiliated. The dreams that included Nightlight were the worst; the spectral boy wanted him to remember him in his dreams, but what could he do when all his dreams turned into nightmares?

Either way, they ended the same: he was alone to deal with the consequences, and what brutal consequences they were. He never died, but was eternally tortured until he woke up, and sobs among the bedsheets that never grew tired of accumulating nightmares sand.

He'd cry until his eyes were puffy, and he was choking on snot, and he stopped coughing out of his dry throat, and realize that he was utterly pathetic.

Soon he wanted to stop sleeping altogether. Don't have nightmares. Don't dream. Don't touch dreamsand. Stay awake. Listen to balloons. Send out moonbeams. _Look normal._

This normal wasn't good enough for Lady Solar. Having known him for billions of years, she could see right through him. She knew he was putting up a wall using tired ocean blue and dull dirt from the moon and small talk, but she didn't show it until the third visit.

That day he was tired and he _needed_ to sleep _but what if the nightmares come back?_ He didn't want nightmares. Stay awake.

Don't walk to the bed.

Stay awake.

Stay...awake...

The nightmares came back with increased strength, and this time Pitch was taunting him, killing the Guardians one by one, and Nightlight was the last to go, stabbed in the heart like what he had done to Pitch billions of years ago...and then Pitch spoke...

And then he was burnt. Lady Solar had woken him up.

She had seen him – _nononononono you shouldn't be seeing me like this_ – she knew he had nightmares, she yelled at him, and he didn't want to be here, Moon, he shouldn't have slept! A Moonmouse said something, but what did it matter? Everything was muted and gray and he just wanted to scream–

"Stay out of this!"

–and the silence was unwelcome. He had shouted at one of his companions, one of those that had always stuck by him even as the Moon fell into disarray.

_And why is she staring at me like that? Why is she so disappointed?_

_...Why does it remind me of my nightmare?_

No. No, no, no.

He ran away, ignoring her cry for him to stop, even as he made his own cry for help when his sanity fell apart, when he was sure that he was falling into the darkness.

And as he fell, she vanished.

_She was weak. She doesn't want to help you, and the rest of the world doesn't care._

The voice in his head turned out to be right, he thought. Lady Solar did not return to the Moon, as far as he knew.

And he didn't want to send moonbeams down to Earth or listen to balloons anymore. He wanted to be left alone, isolated and trapped.

Or maybe what he needed was sleep.

_Yes._

Sleep...

...was just what he needed.

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**I need better things to write than useless MiM-centric oneshots.**

**Nightmares have always fascinated me for some reason.**


End file.
